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Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Review of Meeting Infinity ed. by Jonathan Strahan

Each
of editor Jonathan Strahan’s three Infinity anthologies to date has been
loosely—emphasis on ‘loosely’—centered around a core idea of science
fiction.Engineering
Infinity, Edge
of Infinity, and Reach
for Infinity in some way explore hard sf as of 2010, look at the
(supposed) burgeoning fourth generation of sf in 2012, and provide an outlook
to the fictional state of solar system exploration in 2014, respectively.For the fourth Infinity installation, Meeting Infinity (2015, Solaris), Strahan switches things up
with the notion of ‘future shock.’While
most authors selected take the theme in a post-human direction, the overall
variety of perspectives prevents the anthology from becoming monotonous.But it’s the relatively consistent quality of
the stories that make it the best of the Infinity series to date.

But
we start slow.With future shock the
theme, there are inevitably stories most sf readers could predict.“Cocoons” by Nancy Kress presents a planetary
colonization scenario wherein humans are being taken over by microscopic…
things, transforming them into something more than human.Executed in simplistic terms, Kress’ story
comes across as very traditional, which, in the context of today’s
multi-dimensional sf, does it few favors.“Aspects” by Gregory Benford is another standard story.Humans running from mechwarriors a la Terminator (with a brief interludes why
technology is important), this may be the purest genre story in the collection—a
tag it perhaps could have avoided by having a bit more mood.Emphasis on the “shock” side (given how manta
rays play a role), “Rates of Change” by James S.A. Corey is a story about a
woman trying to come to terms with the meaning of existence in a body she was
not born into, as well as dealing with the aftermath of an accident involving
her son.The ideas in the story are far
from new (I could list many similar stories), “Corey” nevertheless renders them
in intelligent enough fashion to give pause upon the final page.

There
are some dark—and engaging for it—stories in Meeting Infinity.In “Desert
Lexicon,” Benjanun Sriduangkaew tells of roboticized mercenaries and what they
learn of the harder realities of war.Compared to Gregory Benford’s story, Sriduangkaew’s comes across as
significantly more existential given how it moves beyond mere dependence on
technology to be a meditation on the abstraction from reality that combat and
prosthetized mortality impose.Even
though the cyberpunk wave has faded into the sea, “Body Politic” by Kameron
Hurley is an exemplary piece.Featuring
a very specific, intriguing narrative voice, and set in a world all the more
interesting for its indirectly rather than directly related setting, it tells
of a violent interrogator and the mysterious person she’s been assigned to get
information from.Hurley shows some
quality writing chops in this story (chops I’ve not yet seen from her), which
seems to indicate she’s ready to move beyond the ‘angry women bathe the world in blood’ premises I’ve seen thus far
in her novels.

Choosing
Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations” as her target, Yoon Ha Lee’s “The Cold
Inequalities” revisions the story from not only a gendered perspective, but
perhaps more so from a knowledge perspective.Lee may be preaching to the choir, but she does so in engaging, prosaic
fashion that provides an intelligent response to Godwin’s tale.Another story in Aliette de Bodard’s Xuya
mindship universe, “In Blue Lily’s Wake” deals with the death of mindships, in
this case by the boatloads (ha!) at the hands of the eponymous disease.Many, many characters crumpled together into
a complex—overly complex for the length—story of redemption and guilt, this
story may over reach its grasp.“Exile
from Extinction” by Ramez Naam is an over-confident tale that attempts to box
significant aspects of being human that inherently defying boxing.Treating intelligence, morality, and emotions
as if they could be quantified and isolated in a machine, the story is of a
fighter pilot trying to escape AI’s razing of Earth.I’m crap at predicting endings, but this one
had red arrows guiding me all the way to a maudlin conclusion.If Naam had something to convey beyond
uber-techno-optimism, this story might be worth paying attention to.

There
are three stories in Meeting Infinity
with very similar premises, but which move in different directions.From average to good, Madeline Ashby’s
“Memento Mori” (meaning something like ‘remember that you are mortal’) examines
life extension in a have vs. the have-nots scenario.Problems with the story arise in execution:
more detail and changes in pace were needed to emphasize what needed
emphasizing.As it stands, the story
comes across a bit rushed and unemotive.An Owomoyela’s “Outsider” feels Star
Trek-ish in how its ship of immortals encounters a ship of “natural” (i.e.
mortal) humans, the socio-cultural conflict which arises paralleling (perhaps)
bits of the real-world.And thirdly “My
Last Bringback” by John Barnes, while initially disorienting, is a story that
takes Ashby’s premise and makes it more sophisticated in style and deeper in
theme by simplifying the storyline but complexifying its layers. About a person
who murdered their parents because they forced her to remain natural while
other children around her were born nubrids
(biologically treated to take human existence to the next level). Dense in
idea and ideology, it has value in re-reading (and comparison to Brave New World), and is one of the best
in the anthology.

Where
most of the stories in the anthology look at cybernetically or biologically
modifying humans (the cover image is apt), there are a couple which approach
‘future shock’ from different perspectives.“Pictures from the Resurrection” by Bruce Sterling is certainly sharp
satire, but satire of what, is less certain.The cultural-political climate in the US, war on terrorism, and the
Mexican immigration issue seemingly all possibilities, Sterling’s witty sense
of humor displays itself in this artist meets ninja zombies in ‘future’
Texas.Great stuff from Sterling.“All the Wrong Places” by Sean Williams is
the story of a young man who foolishly breaks off a relationship with the woman
of his dreams and his quest to find her in a solar system steadily expanding
with d-mat technology.The denouement is
nothing new (i.e. it’s classic), but the journey is relayed in personally
meaningful terms reminiscent of David Gerrold’s The Man Who Folded Himself).Perhaps not what one would expect given the anthology’s title and genre,
“Drones” by Simon Ings appears (like Barnes’ story, it’s also a dense read) to
present the monotony of life in a near-future scenario after major global
change.It’s uncertain how successfully
the story combines its elements into a concrete whole, but remains one of the
more intelligent pieces in the anthology for the intrigue inherent to this
question.

If
there is anything to love about Ian McDonald, it’s that he approaches his
novels like painters approach masterpieces.Using short stories like preliminary sketches, he works out the details
to the larger piece through tests and trials on the smaller, short-story
canvas.Numerous are the shorts
occurring in the same settings as several of his novels, and in keeping, “The
Falls” is part of his Luna
setting.The comparative/contrasting
story of an AI’s psychiatrist and the mother of a “moon child” (a first
generation Lunite), McDonald does the subject of ‘meaning of existence’ no
disservice.The conclusion plucking
lightly the strings of emotion, it makes a great closing story to the
anthology.Given its quality and the
related stories published (see also “The Fifth Dragon,”) one hopes McDonald
will eventually pool enough “sketch” material to fill a Luna collection—like what Cyberabad Days was to River of Gods.

In
the end, Meeting Infinity is the best
of the Infinity series to date, and compared to Upgraded (2014), another recent anthology largely about
post-humans, does a better job balancing quality and quantity.That there are a variety of approaches to the
subject, from satire to cyberpunk, classic to revisionist, helps to energize an
anthology theme that is not new.There
are a couple low points (e.g. the Kress and Naam stories are not exactly
sophisticated), but by and large the quality is very consistent, with a few
stand outs—the Lee, Sterling, and Barnes’s stories, for example.While I still recommend novels like Count Zero, Holy Fire, Fools, and
others in terms of ‘future shock,’ the anthology moves through the theme in appealing,
often thought-provoking fashion.

All
original to the anthology, the following sixteen stories comprise Meeting Infinity:

Introduction,
Jonathan Strahan

Rates
of Change, James S.A. Corey

Desert
Lexicon, Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Drones,
Simon Ings

Body
Politic, Kameron Hurley

Cocoons,
Nancy Kress

Emergence,
Gwyneth Jones

The
Cold Inequalities, Yoon Ha Lee

Pictures
From the Resurrection, Bruce Sterling

Aspects,
Gregory Benford

Memento
Mori, Madeline Ashby

All
the Wrong Places, Sean Williams

In
Blue Lily’s Wake, Aliette de Bodard

Exile
From Extinction, Ramez Naam

My
Last Bringback, John Barnes

Outsider,
An Owomoyela

The
Falls: A Luna Story, Ian McDonald

For
a more in depth look at the anthology, see Lois Tilton’s excellent review on
Locus here.